1842.] Asiatic Society. 597 



Smith seems to believe in the existence of a smaller race, "lower, with a broader 

 back, and of a light grey colour, obscurely marked with darker cross bars, from the 

 tips of the hairs being black ; the limbs and face pale buff. A specimen, shot among 

 the rocks on the sea-shore, near Vincovah, in the vicinity of Bombay, was in colour 

 yellowish-grey, brindled with blackish streaks : the head was sharp : the under-parts 

 dirty-white; the tail not very hairy, whitish below, and the markings on the body 

 distinct. It was killed in the act of searching for offal and putrid animal matter cast 

 on shore by the sea."* 



3. C. aureus; the Jackal. Common to all India westward of the Boorampooter, and 

 extending (without satisfactorily known variation) to Anatolia, Turkey, the Island of 

 Candia, part of Greece, and the southernmost confines of Russia; but, I believe, un- 

 known in^frica, where represented by allied species. Syria and the north-east of Africa 

 are, indeed, remarkable for the variety of small indigenous canines described by Rup- 

 pellandby Hemprich and Ehrenberg ; and the following has, probably, still to be added 

 to their number (vide Kotzebue's ' Journey to Persia', p. 62). " In Grusia, among the 

 beasts of prey, there is a species of Jackal which is called Tshakatka. It resembles 

 the Wolf, but is smaller and has a much more ferocious appearance ; its howl shakes 

 the very soul. The animal is, besides, very bold, and sneaks during the night into the 

 camp to steal the soldiers' boots. When very hungry, it enters burial grounds and 

 digs up the bodies recently interred." It is thus a true Jackal, but there is reason 

 to suspect a larger species than the common one. 



4. C. chrysurus, Gray, vel (?) Vulpes xanthura, Gray, already noticed. 



5. Vulpes Cor sac, v. Bengalensis, Indicus, et Kokree. Mr. Elliot states of this 

 species, that " it is remarkable that though the brush is generally tipped with black, 

 a white one is occasionally found [i. e. in the Southern Mahratta country], while in 

 other parts of India, as in Cutch, the tip is always white." In Bengal I have hitherto 

 found it invariably black-tipped. This animal appears to be common throughout 

 India, extending, it would seem, westward of the Indus and into Tartary. The varie- 

 ties (?) mentioned by Elphinstone, as already cited, inhabiting the Western Indian 

 desert, require investigation; as also the Dooab Fox of Hardwicke and Gray. 



6. V. montanus, vel Himalaicus, vel ? Nipalensis et Hodgsonii of Gray, the latter 

 probably mere varieties of colour, and not more different from the ordinary type than 

 the beautiful specimen exhibited on this occasion. The Neilghierry Fox is, probably, 

 an additional species, unless it prove to be Mr. Gray's Chrysurus vel? Xanthura 

 which however is unlikely. 



From Mr. J. J. Athanass, have been received ten heads of the Indian Antelope 

 (Antilope CervicapraJ, one only being that of a female, and among those of males 

 there is one remarkable for the deformity of its right horn, which curves shortly 

 round to form a circle and is then broken off: this horn indeed considerably resembles 

 that of a castrated individual which lived some years in the London Zoological Gar- 

 dens, and which possessed a horn on one side only, of similar flexure, the other side 

 having no more trace of it than in the female of this species ; and it may be, therefore, 

 that the testis of the corresponding side had been injured in the animal whose head is 

 now exhibited, a circumstance which, in the Cervine genus, is well known to affect the 



* Communicated to Col. Smith by Col. Dunstcrville, H. C. S., who was present. 



